Currywurst

Currywurst

Currywurst (top) lightly topped with curry and served with French fries
Type	Bratwurst
Place of origin	Germany
Created by	Herta Heuwer
Main ingredients	Pork sausage, curry ketchup

Currywurst (German pronunciation: [ˈkœʁiˌvʊʁst]) is a fast food dish of German origin consisting of steamed, then fried pork sausage (German: Bratwurst) typically cut into slices and seasoned with curry ketchup, a sauce based on spiced ketchup or tomato paste, itself topped with curry powder, or a ready-made ketchup seasoned with curry and other spices. The dish is often served with French fries.

The invention of currywurst is attributed to Herta Heuwer in Berlin in 1949, after she obtained ketchup (or possibly Worcestershire sauce) and curry powder from British soldiers in Germany. She mixed these ingredients with other spices and poured it over grilled pork sausage. Heuwer started selling the cheap but filling snack at a street stand in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin, where it became popular with construction workers rebuilding the devastated city. She patented her sauce under the name "Chillup" in 1951. At its height the stand was selling 10,000 servings per week. She later opened a small restaurant which operated until 1974. On June 30, 2013, Heuwer's 100th birthday was celebrated with a Google Doodle.

Today, currywurst is often sold as a take-out/take-away food, Schnellimbisse (snacks), at diners or "greasy spoons," on children's menus in restaurants, or as a street food and usually served with french fries or bread rolls (Brötchen). It is popular all over Germany but especially in the metropolitan areas of Berlin, Hamburg and the Ruhr Area. Considerable variation, both in the type of sausage used and the ingredients of the sauce, occurs between these areas. Common variations include the addition of paprika or chopped onions. Often currywurst is sold in food booths, sometimes using a special machine to slice it into pieces, and served on a paper plate with a little wooden or plastic fork, mostly a Currywurst fork. It is also sold as a supermarket-shelf product to prepare at home, such as Meica CurryKing.